Bruce Arnold

Ear Training Books Expensive

Your Ear Training Books Expensive

Q: I believe your ear training books are too expensive and why shouldn’t I just use online apps to study ear training?

A: Yes, I can understand your concern. Having been a poor, starving musician at one point in my life I can relate. First, I would recommend the digital downloads for all of our books and only print out what you need to. Because we are a small publisher making physical books especially with CDs included is super expensive if you are not making a warehouse full of product. We should really also include the fact that I give you unlimited advice via email. This takes many hours a day but in my opinion is the only way that I can guarantee that a student understands the information and is practicing the right thing. How much is it worth to you to know that what you might practice for years is the right thing to do and you are practicing it the right amount of time? That is priceless in my opinion. There have been countless studies done to show that if a group of people read any sentence there will be multiple ideas about what that sentence is expressing. So based on that alone it is extremely important to have interaction with someone that has a lot of experience and has the patience to help in a meaningful way. Personally I went through so many misconceptions of music if I would have known the correct path I know I be twice the musician I am today. Remember there are only so many hours in a day to practice and doing an exercise right way is the only way you will succeed is a highly competitive field. You can’t get that from most apps. Though we are working on an app that I’ll interface with to help you in a deeper way but still I’m personally involved.

Using online ear training methods that aren’t giving you any help to correct your misconceptions to me is Russian Roulette and in most cases you lose. It’s easy to come up with an exercises and program it into an app. The problem comes when the student interfaces with that app with all their misunderstandings and misconceptions. End result, they end up wasting tons of precious time.

One last point please stop by and listen to some of my CDs or watch performances on youtube.com When you want to buy a book on music education. Please first check out the author and make some decisions for yourself on whether they can actually play music. If you read a review of a book by someone. Google their name and see if they can actually play music. It’s easy to find people who think they know what they are talking about but can they get up on stage and really play you some great music.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope this helps you understand some of the aspect of learning of music and ear training.

Sincerely,

Bruce

It is also recommended that you read Bruce Arnold’s Blog at his artist site. It contains more discussion of the musical topics found in these FAQs as well as other subjects of interest. You will also find the “Music Education Genealogy Chart” located here which shows you the historic significance of the music education products found on the Muse Eek Publishing Company Website.